Melbourne’s most famous police stand-offs
It was in 1994 that I first realized that an empty stomach trumps human compassion.
After a large number of police officers opened fire on people, a new system called Project Beacon was implemented in which the safety of the public, police and criminals was a priority. Almost immediately a disturbed gentleman climbed over the edge of the West Gate Bridge, threatening to jump. Police, following Beacon rules, closed the bridge to wait for him during the evening rush hour.
On the Melbourne side, stranded motorists abandoned their cars, encouraging the man on the track to jump out because the lamb chops were on their dinner table and were getting cold.
Equal sympathy is felt for 22-year-old Jack Gibson-Burrell, who painted a giant bird on Bolte Bridge and then made a series of demands during a nine-hour standstill (though he sat most of the time).
He wanted a tax break, a peanut butter and jelly sandwich (he should go to jail for this), and a glass of milk. The bridge takes its name from the prime minister, Sir Henry Bolte, who wanted him executed for this crime.
His demands were not met and he was detained, which leads us to conclude that run-ins with the police rarely end well.
Here’s a list of criminal plans that will always end badly.
Read ‘Helicopter’ by Mark Brandon
On a quiet Australia Day in January 1978, Bill Martin was one of two District Court judges appointed to the position.
The field was quiet, and Martin’s tipster, Ernie Trotter, was completing paperwork with his head down when backup man Mark Brandon “Chopper” Read emerged, wearing double-breasted jeans to conceal his single-barreled shotgun.
This was madness. Read had promised his prison mate Jimmy Loughnan to hatch a plot to secure his release. This is it.
In his pocket was a note of Loughnan’s demands, including that he receive an automatic station wagon, $1 million in cash and a jet at the airport.
Read later said it should have been an automatic because “Jimmy is too stupid to drive a manual.”
Loading the gun with blanks, Chopper pushed the gun towards the judge’s head. What he didn’t know was that at this range, a blank bullet would be lethal. Thinking quickly, the judge put the gun away and began walking toward the bench door, following Read. According to Trotter, Martin turned towards Read’s face and “kicked him hard”.
Trotter wrestled with the gun of Read, who was sentenced to 13 years in prison. He wrote a letter to Martin to apologize. The judge wrote a response saying he knew it wasn’t personal and wished the attacker good luck in the future.
Loughnan was part of the team that later attacked and stabbed Read at Pentridge Prison.
Amos Atkinson
A few months later, Chopper’s friend Amos Atkinson proved that he was no student of history and created another siege, this time to demand Read’s release.
He first opened fire on police from a taxi in South Melbourne, then attacked the Italian Waiters Club in Melbourne, holding 30 staff and diners hostage.
Read said he would start killing if he wasn’t released within 24 hours. What he didn’t know was that members of the newly formed Special Operations Group were across the road with orders to shoot Amos dead if he raised his gun.
When his first request was rejected, he asked to see his mother.
Unimpressed, she walked up the stairs in her dressing gown before getting her son dressed and ending the separation by hitting him in the head with her bag.
He then gave up without a fight.
Chopper Reading (2)
As part of a prison protest, Read managed to cross the roof of Pentridge, but found burly prison officers waiting for them. One of them smashed a wooden baton over the rebel’s head until it broke. Read said: “Don’t do that to the guy behind me, he hates screws.”
When his demands to leave maximum security were ignored, the tops of his ears were cut off, forcing authorities to send him to hospital. He mistakenly guessed that they might reconnect. During a wild period, other prisoners did the same to join the Van Gogh Club. Then an overzealous member cut off his penis. At this point, Read announced that it was time to resign “when the Dickie Birds started banging on the table”.
Edwin John Eastwood
Eastwood, another late learner in Pentridge Prison, carried out two kidnappings that would end badly for him.
In October 1972, he kidnapped six children and their 20-year-old teacher, Mary Gibbs, from their small school in Faraday. he stole Sun‘s chief police reporter, Wayne “Smokey” Grant, was told to report the kidnapping anonymously and leave a ransom note at the school demanding $1 million.
Gibbs jumped out of Eastwood’s van and set off the alarm. The kidnapper was sentenced to 21 years in prison, with a minimum of 15 years.
He escaped from Geelong Prison and did so again in February 1977 at Wooreen Primary School in South Gippsland.
He kidnapped nine children and their 20-year-old teacher, Rob Hunter, just days into his first assignment. He managed to kidnap five more adults along the way.
He demanded $7 million, the release of 17 prisoners, 100 kilos of heroin, 100 kilos of cocaine and a car full of fuel.
Eastwood left a sign at school to give himself time: “I’M GOING ON A NATURE STUDY TRIP, I’LL BE BACK IN AN HOUR!”
Hunter was professionally frustrated that no school teacher used capital letters.
Eastwood fed his captives canned ham and chocolate before chaining them up for the night. While the kidnapper liked big plans, he wasn’t good with details, so truck driver Robin Smith was able to break free and run 10 kilometers to a farmhouse to sound the alarm.
Eastwood was shot in the leg during his arrest.
When Chief Superintendent Mick Miller was asked what would happen to the officer who fired the shot, he replied: “Get him into target practice.”
Although kidnapping children was a terrible crime, Eastwood dirtied his notebook further by picking up a guitar in prison, so Read referred to him as the “tone-deaf kidnapper”.
Eastwood was easily offended and wrote a letter to Read stating that he should see a psychiatrist. Read retorted: “I did and he said, ‘Send in Ted Eastwood.'”
Greg ‘Bluey’ Brazel
Double murderer and prison tough guy Brazel was one of the gang members who stabbed Chopper Read in prison. He later went on a hunger strike in prison for weeks, demanding improvements in conditions.
His supporters contacted the media every day to say that he was fading and was days away from death.
We asked prison officials to provide their physical statistics. He was the same height and weight as legendary football player Leigh Matthews.
It turns out he has a secret stash of Mars bars in his cell. The only health risks were tooth decay or a fatal dose of acne.
Glenn ‘Colonel’ Sanders
Glenn Sanders was a genius who could fix just about anything, but he was fatally unable to tell the time.
Fueled by drugs and paranoia, he booby-trapped his country property and began wearing a suicide vest as he wandered around Derrinallum on the Hamilton Highway.
He had built a cannon to occasionally fire at nearby Elephant Mountain.
After he was seen heading to the hospital wearing an explosive vest to visit his mother, Special Operations Group hostage negotiators tried to talk him down, but he wouldn’t do it.
The siege at the property in April 2014 lasted seven hours, with Sanders repeatedly saying he would not surrender to police. He also kept asking them the time. What they didn’t know was that he had prepared seven bombs to explode at 5 in the morning. What he didn’t know was that they would be leaving at 4 in the morning due to daylight saving time.
His explosive vest had three detonation points so he could trigger it when handcuffed.
After the early outburst, Sanders involuntarily shrugged in shock. This was his last act on this earth.
Christopher Dean Binse
Badness Binse was a prolific armed robber and expert escape artist, but he must have known it would be impossible to escape the multitude of police outside his door in East Keilor in May 2012.
Days earlier he had pulled off an armed robbery of $235,000, but now, after a 44-hour siege, he must have thought he might not live to spend it.
SOG pumped the place full of tear gas and hit it with distraction devices (which worked so well that the house later had to be demolished).
Binse, who was blind, armed and wearing a ballistic vest, came out firing. The SOG responded by shooting at him several times until he was knocked off his feet.
Thinking the police were trying to kill him, he stood up again, but was knocked down by a second shot. However, the SOG was not using lethal SG bullets, but bean bag bullets designed to be non-lethal.
The doctor who came to the scene took his pulse. It was 80.
Binse later wrote to SOG a critique of his tactics and then asked for a round of pears as a souvenir.
The request was denied.
